


one-seventh of a plan

by sciencemyfiction



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Gen, and some of that goodwill came back on him, probably AU, so yeah yeah what if Molly crawled out of his grave, spoilers through CR2 E29 technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 23:44:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15593436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: Mollymauk wakes up, and starts to make the journey to Zadash. But it'd be a hard journey alone-- luckily, some old friends show up.





	one-seventh of a plan

Icy cold greets her, and a red flag, and a still night. She coughs up a lungful of dirt, and sits up, and tries to squirm free of a heavy blanket made of finely woven wool, depicting a silver dragon. The red flag looks inviting, and she struggles out of her silver cocoon, reaching up to take it. 

Peacocks, stars, moons, constellations, omens, serpents, portents, colors and colors and red with gold. She looks down at her arms and thinks this flag would make a good coat. It might match, if anything could match. At the last second before she slips it on, she finds that its lapel has been adorned with a note. The note says:

> Go to the Gentleman. He is in Zadash. 
> 
> Find us with his help. 
> 
> your name is Mollymauk and we are your friends.

It hurts to breathe, sharp spike in her chest, but she draws in a deep breath anyway, and says the name aloud. 

"Mollymauk."

Who is we? She will find out. Who is Mollymauk? She is not sure the name fits. But she likes it, likes the familiarity of it, the mystery it promises. The Gentleman will know her, and who her friends are, if she can find her way to Zadash. She doesn't know which way that is. 

Hm. She doesn't know anything about  _where_ she is, either. Everything has a sense of distance, as though the world is slightly removed from view, covered by a burial shroud's thin gauze. She doesn't like that sensation. She doesn't like the cold, either; so she gathers up the silver coccoon and wraps it about her body like a heavy cape, and looks for signs of where to go from here. 

Not far from the grave, there is a road. Mollymauk walks there, and feels the pockets of her coat for...something. She's not sure what. Whatever it is, it's not there. 

So she looks down again at the note, frowning at the words and trying to tell if maybe there's some other hidden meaning to them. Nothing jumps out at her, no secret code. She holds up the note to the watery light of the moon, but sees no invisible ink. 

"Your name is Mollymauk, and we are your friends," she mumbles back to herself. "Hm."

She looks at the road, and decides to take it, following it with soft, almost silent booted feet that feel just a little bit too cold, right now. She walks through a forest, and down a mountain, and almost wouldn't have stopped, except that the sky does a thing, beautiful and strange. The moon has sunk down low, making it harder to see, and she was missing the color that light brings, just a bit, when suddenly the eastern sky began to catch fire. It spreads up across the heavens like a slow-motion explosion, transforming the snow-covered plains around her into beautiful red-gold palaces built over the black and sturdy trunks of trees and stone. Ice catches the light all over, sparkling, and she is so in awe that she forgets to keep walking. 

That is how they come upon her: six young men, barely dressed to handle the cold, with crossbows out and suspicion in their faces, and terror in the pits of their eyes. She wonders if it is the flower-bright purple of her skin that scares them. They are all shades of brown. They do not have tails. Maybe she is a monster?

"N-now before you go doing anything funny," says one with curly red hair, holding out a rusty saber as if to ward her off. The others don't get closer than a loose ring around her, but this one moves so near they could almost cross swords. "You know, we did  _try_ to do as you said."

She looks amongst them curiously. 

"As I said?"

Something about her tone-- playful but serious-- seems to send a chill down the red-haired man's spine. He wipes his face with his free hand, pushing his hair out of his eyes. It is damp; he's sweating. Why? Was it hard to climb this far up the mountain, she wonders. 

"Yes, sir, as you said, we tried to become, become, you know,  _honest folk,_ but we just ain't suited to it, all right? We was sloppin' pigs for a couple days and then we got in trouble 'cause Mattias had to go and steal one."

"Sorry," says Mattias, who is apparently the big skeletally-thin one with tan skin and thick black hair on his head and forearms and poking out of the chest of his shirt. "I was just real hungry, Zenny."

"Shut up."

"Yeah."

"May I make a suggestion?" Mollymauk says, fascinated by them. They all nod, almost fearful, and she feels as though they lean in to listen closer. "Maybe I could go with you and show you how to do it right? I mean, I happen to be headed to Zadash right now, and I've got some time on my hands. I could probably show you a thing or two about how not to steal pigs."

Zenny, the red-headed fellow who'd first spoken, says shakily,

"Could you, then?"

Mollymauk spreads her hands, and smiles a big toothy smile. 

"Never stolen a pig in my life. More than I can say for Mattias, there, ey?"

And that seems to settle it. Zenny lowers his sword, and the others all lower their crossbows, and Mollymauk offers a hand to shake his hand. They grip each other's forearm, shake once, hard, to seal the deal. Then Mollymauk turns to the rest and carols for them to come closer, wanting to know them by name. There are Mattias and Zenny, of course, and then a bald one named Jameson, a dark-brown one with soft, curly hair named Leofric, and twins with the darkest skin of all and matching dark hair, named Amaro and Theodore. Mollymauk introduces herself with a bow and a flourish, feeling the silver tapestry flop about her and letting the coat flutter in the faint winter breeze. 

"Mollymauk is my name!" Her throat feels a little gritty and strange. She swallows a little to clear it. "Pleasure to meet you all, my lads."

At this, Zenny and Leofric trade confused looks, and Leofric speaks up, his voice softer than the rest, and raspy. 

"Ain't you remember before? When we met the last time?"

"Yeah," Jameson adds, crossing his arms over his chest. "And wasn't you with others? Where's that blue girl who collects all the pants and such?"

"And that scary unkillable guy that shoots fire?" Amaro pipes up, his voice tiny with fear, quavering like a candle about to go out. The others all nod and look amongst the trees with worry, as if the lich they're talking about will pop out at any second and incinerate them. 

Mollymauk is torn, not sure if she should tell them that she has no idea who they mean, and starts to cryptically pass it off. These are just new friends she's made, after all; she can figure out who the old ones were when she makes it to Zadash. So, she looks around at the trees, like they do, and shrugs. 

"Isn't life a little better with a few secrets?" 

Or rather, she would, but a fistful of dirt gets caught in her mouth, and she coughs it out, spitting muck and the tang of iron on the ground. It hurts; she hacks and heaves and another lungful of dirt comes out, and when the coughing passes she's dizzy and kneeling under the radiance of a morning that feels, suddenly, distinctly stolen-- something that is not meant to be her own. 

Zenny is kneeling with her, his pasty pale face transformed with worry and shock. Behind her, Leofric says worriedly, 

"Are you  _okay_ , Mollymauk? there's a big hole in your coat."

"And a big bloodstain on your blanket," worries Mattias. 

Zenny doesn't ask her anything, but he does offer a hand. Mollymauk takes it. 

"I think he's just tired, lads, leave him be," says Zenny, and when he stands, Mollymauk stands with him. 

"Thank you," Mollymauk says, wiping the bloody dirt from her lips. "One thing. 'She', if you would."

Zenny's eyebrows furrow deep, and he claps a hand to Mollymauk's shoulder, his eyes gone oddly teary. She can sense a world of things unspoken there, a history she doesn't think she used to know-- but maybe she did?-- and a heart that was maybe closed to her that feels open, now. Whatever else is true, she feels a camraderie with him, and takes comfort in that hand on her shoulder.

"Yes, mum. Sorry I was impolite before. Lads, can someone help her? I don't think there's room for two of us in the cart but we could let Molly take the seat in the back until she's feelin' right, yeah?"

"I can make room. Um, and if we stack the winter blankets it might be a little more comfortable, like?" Mattias doesn't wait, rushing off the side of the road to a poorly-concealed cart being drawn by what looks like a very underfed mule. As they all move towards it, Mollymauk lets Zenny steady her until the dizziness has completely faded away. She's not confident she can walk alone for long, but luckily, it doesn't sound like she'll have to. She climbs up into the wagon, taking the space that was made for her, and sits down, taking a long breath through her nose to steady herself. 

"All right then! Shall we?" 

She feels the big doe eyes of Leofric on her, and smiles a little as the twins approach. Something about that feels so odd; like a pattern, repeating and repeating, even though those repeating it don't recognize the beats. So she summons up her best charming smile, and balances her sword on her nose while they start heading down the mountain and towards Zadash, telling stories she makes up on the spot. Sometimes they feel like they have a grain of truth in them, and make her uneasy; sometimes they're just nonsense she spits out like dust to shape the hours of travel into something fun. As they listen, eventually they start participating, sharing tales of their own as she passes on the narrative to Jameson's active imagination and Amaro's streak of romanticism. By the middle of the afternoon, Mollymauk is silently enjoying the banter between the others, drifting half-awake and looking out over the valley below them at a city on a matching mountainside. 

Zenny, who's guiding the cart, says, "Did you have business in Hupperdook?"

Mollymauk is delighted by the name, but shakes her head, smiling wryly. 

"I'll tell you something secret if you promise not to share."

Zenny strikes Mollymauk as the kind of person who is eaten alive by secrets, but simultaneously  _has to know._ And she's not wrong. He quarrels with himself over it for a minute or two, every emotion she could have imagined passing over his face in a comedy of exaggerated anguish and curiosity. When the war settles, he promises, and his face looks serene and his eyes are true. 

"I don't know what I'm doing at all. There was a note that said to find Zadash, and that my friends would be there."

Zenny gulps, and Mollymauk is intrigued to realize that it's likely he knows who her friends  _are._  

"What else should you do when you wake up in the middle of nowhere, right?"

"Well..." And Zenny hesitates, but he presses on, whispering softly. "Well, if you wanna be found, you oughta wait somewhere you _can_ be found, right? So it's good principle, smart choice. Probably better than sitting on your ass, frozen, where ever you woke up." 

Mollymauk runs a hand over the blood-dark spot at the center of her chest, where the fabric at the front of her coat and her shirts is torn from some kind of forgotten wound, and thinks of taking the note out again to check one last time for hidden messages. Not right now, she decides. Not when she's not alone. For now, there's Zenny's strange earnest behavior, and she wants to learn that, to instill it in her memory so she can be as earnest and generous as this. 

"I'd drink to that."

Zenny wordlessly hands her a flask, produced from a hidden pocket in his coat, and winks at her. 

"Here's to bein' found again."

Mollymauk lifts the flask to the heavens, not sure if she's challenging it or just agreeing, and drinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Since Molly's canonly meant to be genderqueer I figured a shift in how they feel caused by a traumatic event like dying might make sense. It does to me, anyway, so I hope that's not too jarring for anyone. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks to tumblr user viciousmaukeries for offhandedly making a comment that made me think of this potential AU. I sort of find comfort in the idea not only that Mollymauk is unkillable, but also that they find themselves amidst friends easily, drawing groups to protect and become close to them. I don't know, this is kind of sentimental and probably very non-canon. But I hope some folks enjoy.


End file.
